


Self Doubt and Endurance

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Series: Undead Chosen One [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hunter of Man Satine, Mandalore Plot AU, Murder, Vampire Anakin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 16:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12437070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Obi-Wan's miserable trip to Mandalore takes a turn for the worse. Satine realizes the monster inside her isn't sleeping as soundly as she'd hoped.Anakin tries to invent a way to save his master from listlessness.





	Self Doubt and Endurance

 

_ Home by dinner. Mace, you promised I could be home by dinner. _

Then again, Obi-Wan was awake during the  _ day. _ He wasn't quite sure that wasn't going to come back to bite him.

Hell, it was  _ already  _ biting him.

Concordia filled the front viewport, growing ever larger as they approached.

_ I can still make it home by dinner. _

But as he listened to Satine explain Concordia's history and sensed something  _ wrong  _ about the Governor...

He resigned himself to the setting sun and set out on a speeder bike to try to find answers.

 

* * *

 

Anakin awoke, found the lingering scent of Obi-Wan fading fast.

He'd been gone for many hours, then.

He stretched in the Force, a leisurely  movement that undoubtedly looked feline to the other Force sensitives here. And yes, they probably noticed. Anakin couldn't help being loud in the Force, the grand masses of power he possessed weren't conducive to hiding. Or quiet. Or much privacy.

Other than easing his mind into a more calm state, the stretching did something else. It told him Obi-Wan wasn't in the Temple.

_ Good time to figure out how to save him, then. _

Anakin's entire being revolted against the thought of taking blood from anyone but Obi-Wan.  _ It didn't used to be like that. _

_ And it's getting harder to keep the two straight. Obi-Wan, and my Blood Source. _

He  _ could  _ go back to feeding from professionals, but the thought made him want to hurl.  _ Sweet Force, no. _

But if he couldn't take  _ only  _ from Obi-Wan, and he  _ wouldn't  _ seek out those who sold their blood...

An idea hit that had him zipping through the halls and down several flights of stairs— the lifts took  _ far  _ too long for his taste— and on into the Halls of Healing, leaving several Jedi blinking in the wind created by his haste and wondering if what they just saw was  _ really  _ what had happened.

“Ah. Skywalker.” Vokara Che didn't even turn around as he sidled up behind her, silent as death.

“You keep blood for transfusions.”

“I do. I assume you're hungry?”

Anakin frowned, thinking about it for a moment. “...No,” he decided. “I ate well yesterday.”

“How is Obi-Wan?”  
“That's the problem. He's not right in the head.”

Vokara turned around, leveling him a  _ look.  _ “That boy has  _ never  _ been  _ right in the head. _ ”

“You have a point,” Anakin smirked. “But it's messing with my head too. So we've got to figure something else out.”

Vokara gestured, and Anakin fell in line behind her as she walked, reining himself in from racing ahead of her. “What kind of not right in the head is Obi-Wan now?”

“Losing his autonomy. And self-esteem.”

Vokara snorted. “Sweetheart, he never  _ had  _ any self-esteem.” Before Anakin could ask her what  _ that  _ was supposed to mean, she stopped before a cupboard and opened it. “Natural human is here. Synthetic is in the one to the right, and other species are around the room alphabetically.”  
Anakin's eyes widened as he stared at all the lovely little boxes stacked in perfect rows.

“Don't have a heart attack,” Vokara observed, voice wry.

His eyes blinked over to her, and he realized she was teasing him. Strange, since she never used to. For many Jedi it went the  _ other  _ way. They'd felt more comfortable when he'd been alive, and the fact he was pure predator now resulted in more careful communication, less joking, fewer requests to spar unless he'd  _ just  _ been fed...

For the head Healer, she seemed  _ more  _ comfortable with him  _ now  _ than before.

_ I wonder if that's because she doesn't have to worry about keeping me alive anymore. That ship already sailed. _

“Would I be allowed to try?”

“Yes, if I'm allowed to observe.”

“Go ahead. Break all the needles you like.”

Vokara scoffed. “Unlike you, I learn from my mistakes.”  
“Really? Is that why  _ seven  _ needles died—”

“I needed to make sure it wasn't a faulty batch,” she retorted, “and trying between your fingers was a logical step to take, since if skin was likely to be thin, it would there—”

Anakin swiped a box, then moved to the next cupboard over and snagged another. “How many needles must die today?”

“Just one. I'm going to let the scanners do what they can, but I think I might be able to draw samples from inside your mouth.”

Anakin nearly dropped the blood boxes. “ _ What _ ?”

“Sit.”

She backed Anakin into the chair and reached to switch on the movable light—

Anakin tensed.  _ It's going to be sudden, it's going to be sudden, you're alright, you're safe, you're okay— _

The light flicked into his eyes.

He flinched, but other than that—

_ Okay. We're okay. See? Not so bad. _ He blinked against the bright glare.  _ Alright. Not pleasant. But we're still okay. _

Vokara pried the boxes from his frozen fingers. “Open your mouth.”

“So you can stab my  _ tongue _ ?” he retorted, trying to leave behind the last remnants of the  _ almost  _ panic attack.

“Oh. Two needles. I'm going to go for your gum, and  _ then  _ your tongue. Though I doubt that can hold still long enough.”

He scowled but allowed her to stick gloved fingers and a needle in his mouth.

Two bent needles later, Vokara gave up.

“Alright. Have at.” She perched on the counter, watching expectantly.

_ You don't find this at  _ all  _ weird?  _

But who was he to complain?

He followed the instructions on the side of the box, opening it and extending the hypo, allowing it to dangle from its tube. He severed the currently clean tube with a sharp bite, and then hooked a fang into the small opening to widen it.

“You're getting dexterous with those teeth.”

He freed the tooth and gave an absent nod. “They're very handy separating tiny droid components that snap together. No more breaking fingernails.”

“Have you had a fingernail break since the change?”

Anakin thought about it. “No.” And then he raised the box to his lips.  _ Here goes nothing, Obi-Wan. _

It tasted bad. Of course it tasted bad, it wasn't Obi-Wan.

But...

After a few swallows he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, realizing—

_ Oh, Force. _

He exploded towards the sink, Vokara moving out of his way so fast she must have figured out this was coming before he bolted.

_ Thanks for the warning. _

His stomach convulsively expelled what he'd consumed, and clutching the sink basin, Anakin felt a dim gratitude he'd made it there in time—

Then again, most  _ thought  _ was near-impossible against the sheer  _ wrongness  _ in his stomach and his wretched gagging, long after the last of it had been purged.

Panting, gasping for air he didn't need, he leaned heavily against the counter.

A disposable cloth entered the periphery of his vision.

“That was entertaining,” Vokara snarked along with the offering.

Anakin dragged the gift across his forehead and then his mouth. And then  _ into  _ his mouth, trying to rid himself of the last of the taste, which made his head woozy with nausea. If he could just rub the roof of his mouth and tongue enough—

“Seriously? Don't you think that's a little melodramatic?”  
_ What is she talking about?  _ Anakin wondered, utterly bewildered as he scrubbed the last of the offending molecules from his back molars.

And then the scent of fresh blood caught his attention and he pulled his hand out of his mouth to look around.

Vokara held her wrist, a tiny bead of blood forming there. “Stop the theatrics and rinse your mouth out, alright?”  
Anakin sighed, decided that telling her that her blood's taste would be awful— not dry-heave-your-guts-out awful, but  _ bad  _ nonetheless— would be a bit of a slur.

_ I mean, she can't help not being Obi-Wan, right? _

He moved closer and accepted the hypo now lightly covered in her blood. He licked it clean, holding back a grimace.

Yep. Just as bad as he'd expected.

_ But  _ his brain cleared a little.

“Do you  _ freeze  _ it or something? What is the difference?”  
Vokara eyed him as she slapped a bandage on the small wound in her arm. “Chemically, structurally, scientifically there is no difference between what was in that box and what I could pull from any human of the same blood type fresh in this room.”

“That's clearly not true. Is there a preservative, or—”

“You think you're allergic?”

Anakin shrugged. “All I know is I'm  _ never  _ trying that again.”

“Fair enough. Now try the synthetic.”

Anakin eyed the second box with clear distrust.  _ This experiment is becoming less fun all the time. _

But for Obi-Wan's sake, he would endure quite a bit worse than a severe case of Vampire Flu.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't as humiliating to call Satine for help as Obi-Wan would have expected.

Apparently a shattered ego could make some things in life  _ far  _ more endurable.

There was something different about these Mandalorians than the ones he'd been familiar with as a teen. For one, they all dressed in armor that looked basically  _ all the same. _ Assembly line, almost.

That  _ never  _ would have been looked well upon nineteen years ago.

_ Blue and gray. Reliability and mourning a lost love. _

Obi-Wan had little to do while he hung upside-down in the Force field and hoped to  _ Force  _ Satine showed up before someone  _ else  _ did, except analyze what he'd seen.

_ Reliable. They are here even though the rest of the Mandalorians have changed. Lost love? Are they mourning Mandalore? _

Then again, the non-Mandalorian Jango Fett had worn armor with a similar color scheme.

_ Bet he killed one of these ones and acquired it that way. _

That would suggest this current version of Death Watch had been around longer than Obi-Wan had at first guessed.

_ Not the kyrt'sad I know, then. Something new, claiming an old title but not the armor. _

 

* * *

 

He didn't enjoy Satine's grim humor.

Not one  _ bit. _

Not when mining machinery was going to crush and grind him into something so  _ mushed  _ that even Anakin wouldn't be able to salvage blood from it.

She hadn't lost her cool-headed competence, for all her pacifist ways. There were a couple moments when Obi-Wan felt a spike of terror as she would turn to  _ harm _ , stop, and get bowled over.

He didn't  _ understand  _ his defanged Duchess, and so help him Force, should anything  _ happen  _ to her—

He took out the Mandalorians with no regard for life. Necks broken, they lay shattered on the floor as he seized Satine's hand and ran for the closest exit.

“For a man sworn to peace, you take an unseemly pleasure in the injuries of others,” Satine hissed.

_ You made me fight for  _ both  _ of us instead of pulling your own weight! _ Stung by this and  _ all the other  _ insults she'd been hurling his way, his Negotiator's tongue failed him and what he heard himself throwing back, like a stumped teen, was, “For a woman sworn to nonviolence, you don't seem particularly bothered I could have been  _ killed  _ back there!”  
He wanted to cave his skull in.

He sounded like the schoolchild who shrieked  _ am not  _ back at their tormentors and thought that counted as a rebuttal.

“But you  _ weren't, _ ” Satine scoffed, turning away with a set to her shoulders he knew well. “And yet I still haven't heard any thanks.”

“You sure haven't changed much,” he muttered, wondering why in  _ hell  _ the Force thought it necessary to drag him across the coals like this.  _ Just kill me and get it over with quick. _

The doors of the lift opened, and Obi-Wan moved before his brain had a chance to catch up, knocking the sentry unconscious. “This is  _ not  _ the way we came in.”

He dragged Satine four steps to the left to take advantage of the cover a boulder could provide. Reinforcements were on their way, Obi-Wan could both sense and see their approach.

“We'll have to stand and fight,” Obi-Wan planned. And  _ then  _ his silver tongue remembered its art. “Or in your case, just  _ stand _ .” And with a vicious knowledge that he'd  _ scored  _ that one, his eyes smiled a sly,  _ bitter  _ sneer in her direction as he slipped away, movements once again graceful.

 

* * *

 

Fury boiled in Satine's brain.

_ This man,  _ to ridicule her for  _ this.  _ Now. Here, when her blood was  _ singing  _ with the violence that could be wrecked, with a body  _ demanding  _ she strip the armor from that fallen commando and fight back-to-back with this jetii once again.

Satine ground her teeth,  _ hating  _ him, hating the beauty of his movements, hating  _ that smile _ that she'd seen a thousand times aimed for their enemies.

But as he realized he no longer had his lightsaber, Satine's hatred melted into utter calm.

He caught up the blaster the prone sentry had carried.

He would acquit himself well with it, Satine knew. He might hate them, but no one ever said he couldn't  _ use  _ one with devastating accuracy... and that was  _ without  _ the Force.

She watched him fight, and  _ saw  _ he didn't kill again.

Even when it became almost ludicrous, and definitely  _ unwise— _

He was refusing to kill again.

_ You're going to get yourself killed, you absolute idiot. _

But  _ damn  _ it all he was going to  _ make his fripping point— _

Once they got out of this, she was going to punch him in the nose for risking his life just to bait her like this.

It went against  _ every  _ hard-learned lesson about war  _ either  _ of them had learned.

Then again, if he'd been  _ smart,  _ he wouldn't be letting—

And then he was  _ down,  _ stunned, and a blaster was lining up for his head.

Reason and conscience vanished in pure, cold fear. “ _ Obi! _ ” She grabbed up what was closest to hand and threw it.

It was only as she watched the commando sink to his knees, crimson spilling over his armor, that she realized she hadn't curled her fingers over a rock.

She'd grabbed the boot knife of the sentry.

The blade of which was now sunk through an artery.

The man collapsed, blood looking black on the ground where it spilled.

Not only had she  _ not  _ thrown a rock.

Some part of her had known she wasn't. Had calculated the distance, the height of the target, the angle of his neckseal—

She'd killed him.

And hadn't even realized ahead of time it would happen.

Sagging back behind the boulder Satine struggled to breathe, feeling blood on her hands that wasn't there.

“ _ Satine _ !”

It was Obi-Wan's voice, raw and terrified, she hadn't heard him this vulnerable in a lifetime—

“Satine—”

She looked up, saw his panicked face—

He would die if distracted.

So, though it was as hellish a lie as she'd ever crafted, she shoved her panic attack aside, looked him in the eye, breathed truth into her mind, “I'm alright.”

In a moment he was back out there, and Satine was left to try to still the trembling in her hand.

Now was  _ not  _ the time for her to have a morality crisis.

Her eyes watched the three missiles Obi-Wan danced to avoid.

She saw them coming around.

She knew the angle they would reach, how many half seconds they had left, and the fact that they had nowhere to go.

The boulder would  _ not  _ protect them. It would be turned into shrapnel that would tear through them both.

_ Down the lift. _

The missiles would not have time to turn, would crash into the wall of the shaft.

Click.

She stood.

The lift had been damaged, had fallen down the shaft earlier in the fight.

Click.

To leap into it was to shatter most of the bones that would strike on impact.

Click.

The Force could be used to cushion the fall and protect against the fire and remorseless metal that would be hurtling down with the velocity of a blaster bolt.

“Satine—?” Obi-Wan called, sounding young, sounding uncertain, watching the missiles returning and backing up as he came to the same conclusion she had, just moments after. He spun around to run, holding out one arm to her.

In a heartbeat she was nineteen again, racing to meet him, leaping up and kicking her legs high enough for him to catch her, one arm around her back, one under her knees even as he leaped into the shaft, neither of them knowing the state of the lift below.

If it had shattered and left jagged edges sticking up—

Obi-Wan broke their fall, diverted the explosive fire that drove down into them, the razor-sharp shrapnel—

The instant they hit he sent them into a roll, and as she lost momentum he threw his body over hers, one last missile just now joining its brethren.

Satine knew what his action meant.

He was spent. The Force was beyond his reach.

And as fire washed over them, she  _ hated  _ this, hated  _ herself.  _ She should be in full armor, covering  _ him,  _ letting beskar'gam take this brutality—

And then all was still, the explosion still ringing in her ears, Obi-Wan limp across her back, gasping in air.

She loved the weight of him. The press, feeling his breath across her ear, her neck—

She felt the moment when his terror and pain subsided. The press against her leg.

Could nearly feel his embarrassment as well as he rolled off of her, turning his face away and still trying to regain the oxygen that had been punched from his lungs.

He could probably sense her own arousal.

_ So, Jedi who has abandoned his ideals— _

_How far have you turned your back on them?_

Stunned blue eyes turned to find hers, something that looked like betrayal in their depths.

_ I killed a man. Again. Why not utterly destroy a Jedi Knight while I'm at it? _

The depths of his eyes went obscure, hidden by a layer of tears that didn't escape the imprisoning lashes. He pushed up against the ground, face twisting in pain as he struggled to stand.

Satine regained her feet first, staring down at him.

Obi-Wan gave up his attempt, his body trembling, and as he slowly turned his head to look up to her, Satine recognized the movement.

A man knowing he turned to look his destroyer in the face.

There was something utterly miserable, utterly broken in his eyes.

She crouched beside him, ran her hand down one arm to check for massive breaks. Finding none, she slung the arm over her shoulder and drove them to their feet, ignoring Obi-Wan's garbled moan of pain, ignoring the burns on the back of his hand, ignoring the charred back of his tunic.

_ It might be less complicated for us to die out here— _

_But we're not going to. Not today._

_Not today._

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan didn't speak until they were off Concordia's surface and headed back to Sundari.

It was nearing morning now, and the sleep deprivation was showing around his eyes, as well as the pain. She needed to tend the wounds as soon as possible, but right now she couldn't leave the navigation to chance—

“You killed for me.”

Satine's blood ran cold.

“I'm sorry.” He sounded utterly defeated. “I never— I never wanted to make you choose between letting me die and your conscience.”

“I didn't  _ choose, _ ” Satine replied, feeling the bitterness in her words. “My body reacted without permission.”

“That's Anakin's entire life now,” Obi-Wan murmured, head sinking to rest against the dash, unable to lean back in the seat because of the burns.

Anger flared bright and clear. “How dare you.”

He squinted up at her, eyes feigning confusion.

“I fripping  _ murdered  _ that man, and what you want to do is convince me to embrace the life-drinker? How  _ dare  _ you take advantage of me like that?”

His eyes widened.

“When you know, can  _ sense  _ my inner conflict and you use it to  _ further  _ your  _ goals—? _ ”

He stumbled up out of his chair, heading aft. In the doorway he paused.

When he spoke, his voice was just as bitter and accusatory as hers. “We fought together well, once. Now we just fight each other. No wonder your planet's a wreck. You can't even take charge of your own fripping mind.”

And with that, he  _ left. _

Satine was left to stare out the viewport and mourn how  _ true  _ every word of it had been.

 

* * *

 

It took a day to patch him up.

It was night once more by the time he joined her on the landing platform, waiting for the Senate ship's landing ramp to lower.

Satine did not  _ like  _ the idea of going to Coruscant to try to block the bullies in the Senate from trying to steal her planet...

But the one thing she'd come away with from the recent blood on her hands was that the only way to keep Mandalorians peacefully slumbering was to  _ not have war near. _

If it came too close, it didn't  _ matter  _ how much they believed in change. Most of them would revert to old ways.

It was too ingrained. The muscle memory too clear.

Mandalorian training was all about taking away natural-born inhibitions to injure,  _ brutally  _ injure other beings. Not a punch in anger, but a destroyed joint. A knife in a blood line that could not be salvaged. Fast as a blink and with no thought required.

Most beings had special walls keeping them from utter, devastating violence. They could beat each other with fists and sticks, kick others curled on the ground—

But rarely would they try to gouge out eyes, even when the situation called for it.

_ I don't have those inhibitions anymore. _

_ No one born on Mandalore over twenty-five years ago  _ does.

Obi-Wan didn't greet her as they stood side by side, a universe apart.

The landing ramp touched down, and a dead-white figure descended, Jedi robes swirling around him and curls falling across his forehead.

Satine stiffened, suddenly  _ knowing  _ this voyage was going to end in blood.

“Duchess.” Their son bowed, his movements the pure grace of a predator.

She should know.

She was hiding her own with ridiculously high heels, a headdress that required constant effort to keep from having fall off her head, and so much fabric that one couldn't actually see her steps.

“I am Anakin Skywalker, here to escort you back to the capital.”

Satine's jaw clenched.

_ Why don't you add a sentence more? Something along the lines of... _

_“And the life-drinker who abuses Obi-Wan and has all but enslaved him.”_

She simply gave him a cool stare to let him know he'd been heard, and then swept forward, Senator Merrik and her guards moving to accompany her.

It would be expected of the voyagers to eat a late dinner and then sleep through the trip to Coruscant.

Instead, she could see Obi-Wan on his knees in utter submission, Anakin's teeth buried in his neck. Obi-Wan not resisting the man who hurt him again and again—

Had Satine's eyes belonged to a Force sensitive, she felt fairly sure they would be glittering gold right about now.

Obi-Wan didn't belong on his knees.

He wasn't a  _ fripping animal  _ to be tended and harvested as  _ food. _

And something she'd long kept in check had tasted blood again and wanted to be let loose once more. Unsatisfied with what had already happened, it clawed at her soul, wanting to test itself against a life-drinker of legend.

She focused on taking extra mincing steps, gathered her skirts in her hands, and smiled to the other politicians already on board.

None of them noticed the hungry gleam in her eye, something just a little off in the voice she affected, the hunter of man in their midst.

 


End file.
